1 in 10
by notyourlittlebisquedoll
Summary: 1 in 10 eating disorder sufferers are male. Zack Addy just so happens to be that 1... T for language.
1. Prolouge

A/N: We're going to pretend some things here. Just dis-regard the fact that Zacky is from Michigan, and that Mikey Way is from Jersey. And Alicia is not on drugs. Oh, and for those not MCR fans Mikey Way is the bassit if My Chemical Romance, Alicia is his wife, and the drummer, Bob, did actually catch on fire. No where near DC, though.

Disclaimer: supposing i did own bones, we would just forget all the cases, bring in characters from other shows (i.e. archie from csi and chase from house) and everybody would just have some huge crazy orgy. yay! orgies!

Prolouge

_When he got up he examined the tile imprints in his knees. Twenty bucks the little lines wouldn't be half as bad if he could just drop a few more pounds..._

_"Zack, I need to talk to you after class." Mr. Marriano told him as he walked in. Zack had been meaning to pay attention but was focoused on tyring to count how many calories he had cinusmed that day. _Let's see. There was breakfast where I had that wheat toast. And then I had that Coke Zero... Wait. Didn't I throw the taost up? Yes. But what if there's still part of it in me?

_"Zack? Zack!" Mr. Marriano waved his hands in front of Zack's face. _

_"Oh. Sorry. Yes?"_

_"Listen. Your grades are B's now. And that wouldn't worry me with any other student but... Your mom contacted me. She said that you needed to be talked to. Zack, she thinks you have and eating disorder."_

_"I do not." Zack was surp__my computer has aids__rised that he couldn't come up with a better response, but only because he was surprised that his teacher had said this. _

_"She wants you to get professional help." _

_"If she wrongfully wants me to seek out professional help then I have no clue why she contacted my science teacher." Zack cocked an eyebrow._

_"Because she thinks you can be reached through science."_

_"Well, if I did have a problem--"_

_"Zack. I didn't want to get in the middle of your family problems but you know how you want to be a forensic anthroploigist?" Mr. Marriano had a look of desparation in his eyes._

_"Yes."_

_"If we don't stop this before it gets out of hand then this could affect your future career options." _


	2. Flashbacks and bad lies

Chapter one

"Zack. Zack." Dr. Brennan sighed as she tried desparately to get her assistant's attention. "Zack!" She yelled.

"No! I don't have a problem!" Zack said, snapping back to the present.

"I never said you did. Why would you?"

"High school flash back." Zack told her apoligetically. Yea, he had been getting alot of those ever since... He was weak. _Weak. And ugly. And fat. Fat. Fat. Fat._

"Zack. You've been kind of distant lately. Would you please check the X-ray that I just gave you for anything abnormal?"

"Yes, Dr. Brennan." Zack looked at the X-rays and sighed. Stress fractures to both of the wrists. This bitch probably fought back.

"Zack, come here and look at these bones." Dr. Brennan called over her shoulder. Zack walked up behind her "They're brittle." He pointed out, reaching out to touch one.

But Brennan caught his hand as he stuck it out. "You're shaking." she told him.

"I'm just a little tired." He tried his best to make it sound convincing. She looked at his face and then turned back down to her bones.

"This is congruent with malnutrition."

Zack stood up straighter and asked quickly "Is that what killed her?"

"No. She was murdered." Bones looked at Zack thoughtfully before finally asking "Are you cold?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Wondering."


	3. Secret meetings and worse lies

Chapter two

"Wait. Brennan You think _Zack_ has an eating disorder?" Angela asked. It was her, Brennan, Hodgins, and Booth in Brennan's office.

Booth sighed "You called me here for this? I don't even talk to the kid."

"Yes. But you're an expert in body language." Bones argued. "And you have your FBI resources."

Booth laughed, "I'm not an expert. Plus, you want me to profile your assistant because you think he has a little eating disorder?" Bones didn't seem amused. "He's been skipping lunch."

"He's been working."

"Hey, why isn't Cam here?" Hodgins asked.

"Because we don't want to cost him his job, we just want to get the facts."

Angela spoke up "So what do I do?"

"See if you can get his meds without using Booth. Hodgins, you watch him when ever your around him not at the lab. Booth, I need you to drop subtle hints."

"So what the hell are you going to be doing?" Booth asked.

"I have to make him focous on the dead body down stairs."

Just then Zack made his entrance with a minilla folder in this hands. "Did I miss something?" He asked.

"No." Booth said. "We were just deciding where we would go out to dinner later. You in?" He shot Brennan a you-fucking-owe-me look. She smiled her thanks.

"I was planning on working on the X-rays." He said uncertinly. This was way too much like an intervention. "I have a file on the victem, Dr. Brennan." he carefully crossed the office, avoiding eye contact and presented Brennan with the folder.

"Thank you, Zack."


	4. High school teachers and video tapes

Chapter three

Angela walked into the school classroom. She had found out from a local eating disorder clinic that Zack had suffered from anoerxia and bulemia in high school. Using the concerned wife angle she had gotten the piece of information that his tenth grade science teacher had been the one to interviene. So now she had to pay him a visit.

"Can I help you?" a man who looked to be thirty sat at a desk with a stack of papers. He was decently good looking, possibly good enough to persue once the whole Zack ordeal was over.

"My name's Angela Montenegro. I work at the Jeffersonian Institue in Washington DC. I need some background on one of your students." She smiled as warmly as she could.

"Frank Marriano." He stood up and extended his hand, which Angela took. "Which student can I help you with?"

"We need some information regarding Zack Addy."

"Zack? He's not in any trouble is he? He was one of my brightest students I've ever had. School wise, that is." He sighed and looked up at Angela. "Ms. Montenegro, I have a feeling I know what this is about. But please, tell me."

"I work with Zack and one of my colleges noticed Zack was shaking, and he looked like he had lost alot of weight. And he's become withdrawn and stopped eating at work. We are afraid that it could be a relapse of his former eaing disorders, but the leader of this little Zack invesigation made me come and ask you a few questions."

"Yes. Anything."

"Do you have any idea how advanced his disease was?"

"He had only been binging and purging for less than a year when his mother contacted me."

"How did he react to intervention?"

"I saved the security tape. Would you like to take a look, Ms. Montenegro?"

"Call me Angela. And yes, it probably would help." Mr. Marriano got up and went to his desk drawer. "I save all the tapes of big moments with my best students. I have one of a girl getting into Yale. It's a wonderful moment." He justified the fact that he had a fourteen-year-old boy on camera.

_"Listen, your grades are B's now. And that wouldn't worry me with any other student but... Your mom contacted me. She said that you needed to be talked to. Zack, she thinks you have and eating disorder."_

_"I do not."_

_"She wants you to get professional help." _

_"If she wrongfully wants me to seek out professional help then I have no clue why she contacted my science teacher." _

_"Because she thinks you can be reached through science."_

_"Well, if I did have a problem--"_

_"Zack. I didn't want to get in the middle of your family problems but you know how you want to be a forensic anthroploigist?" _

_"Yes."_

_"If we don't stop this before it gets out of hand then this could affect your future career options." _

Angela sighed. "And to think I always thought he was just a little off. Could I borrow this tape? To show the other friends of Zack back at the institute?"

"And take this old year book. It has Zack just before things got out of hand." Mr. Marriano went to a shelf and pulled out a yearbook. "Freshman class."

"You seem to know where all of his information is." Angela said.

"It'll be a cold day in hell before you forget anyone as smart as Zack."


	5. Old friends and new information

Chapter four

Zack's freshman picture was blown up on the monitor in the lab.

"Was he even that chubby?" Hodgins asked.

"Somethimes you don't need to be. It's a mental disorder." Brennan shook her head.

"Is that Zack Addy?" An unfamiler voice asked. The group whirled around. A lean boy with black hair that swept into his eyes and black thick-rimmed glassses. He stood a few feet away from the lab, his head cocked to the side.

"Yes... Who exactly are you?" Dr. Brennan questioned.

"Oh, right. I'm here because you want me to identify the belongings of Alicia Way. Zack's not dead, is he?" The boy looked thoughtful. But he also looked punk, not really the type Zack would know.

"Why would he be dead?"

"This is where they deal with dead people."

"Zack's fine. He's taking his lunch break."

"Cool."

"How do you know Zack?"

"We were friends in high school."

"Zack didn't have any friends."

"We weren't best friends. Can I look at Alicia's shit now?"

"Yes. You're Micheal Way?"

"Mikey._"_ Bones let Mikey up into the lab and he sighed "This is definately Alicia's bowl. You found all this stuff on her?"

"How much do you remember about Zack?"

"When we started school he was in a couple of my classes. He wasn't the skinniest kid but he was okay. Not un healthy or anything. People started making fun if him because he hung out with me sometimes. But 'Mikey's friend' didn't sound as nice as 'fat ass' so they called him that. He quit eating and if he did eat he threw it up. Then our teacher interviened and I haven't seen him since he graduated." Mikey picked up a sketch book and opened it "And there's my cock. Do I have to say if all this shit is hers?"

"Yes. Have you ever suffered an eating disorder?"

"Bones! Isn't that a personal question?" Booth scolded.

Mikey laughed. "I get asked that all the time. No. _I_ haven't."

"And Zack has?" Bones asked.

"Yea. He wasn't that bad in high school 'cause he had half the staff and his huge family up his ass." Mikey turned from Alicia's belongings laied out across the table. "So why do you care?"

Bones sighed. "Zack works here. We fear he may have relasped."


	6. Notes and not dates

Chapter five

Zack walked into Bones' office. Everyone sat around in a chair in a circle. "Hi." He said unsurley.

"Where'd ya go, Zack."

"Out to grab lunch."

"Where?"

"Just a little sub shop."

"That's the only place you went to?"

"Yes."

"No gym?"

"No..."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Zack turned and walked out of the office, a little pissed that people were laying into him. "Zack!" Bones called after him. He whirled around to face her. She outstreached her hand that contained a piece of paper. "It's for you."

He walked over and took the white sheet and thanked his boss, wondering what the paper might contain. His head raced as he went over all the possibilities. What if they thought he relasped? He hadn't, right?

Unfolding the paper the handwriting looked veaugly familier. It was a letter addressed to him.

_Hey, Zack._

_So you probably don't remember me but I'm Mikey Way. From good 'ol high school._

He remembered Mikey. Mikey was his only friend in high school.

_And I was actually at the Jeffersonian today, ex-girlfriend got murdered, and then your people told me they knew you (look how special you are, people randomly start conversations about you) so my brilliantness decided to write a note and leave it for you, asking you what was up._

_I left my info with your people so make sure to contact my sorry ass, kay?_

_Mikey._

Then Zack realized Angela had been standing behind him, reading over his shoulder. He twisted around fast, asking her "Why were you reading?"

"Curious about what's going on in Zack-land. Listen. I know you probably don't feel like it but let's go to dinner at Wong Fu's later. Not a date. FYI. But as friends." Angela smiled her smile that made it impossible to say no. Plus, how could he lie to Angela?"

"Sure."

"After work."

"After work."


	7. Lies and beliefs

Chapter six

Wong Fu's glowed red as it usually did, reminding Zack of blood, for no apperent reason. He didn't even work with blood. He spotted Angela in the squints' booth and walked over.

"Hungry, Zack?"

"No."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

Angela smiled and scooted closer to Zack in the booth, "Zack, you're like the baby brother of every squint. And sweetie, I don't want to see my baby brother get hurt."

Zack could tell where this was leading. He knew what the next words out of Angela's mouth would be. No matter how unique the person it was always the same. Even Angela Montenegro couldn't come up with something better. "Some people at work think you have a problem."

"I don't have a problem." He was back in the classroom, between classes staring into the face of his highschool science teacher. Zack could still see the doctor's office, like he could see everything that happened in his life. Damn his photographic memory.

"You're not sixteen anymore, we can't make you get help. We can only recomend it."

"I don't have a problem."

"Okay, Zack. I believe you." The word _lie_ was in _believe_.


	8. Six months and phone calls

Chapter seven

Six months have passed by since the dispelled theory of Zack's eating disorder. Everyday he was watched after and worried about, everyday it made more and more sense that he was friends with that punk kid. He was just like him. Indignant and rebellious.

Zack had off work that day, Bones gave him whatever days off she could as of late. They conformed to his problem and worked around it. No one wanted to pressure him into doing anything he didn't want to do.

The phone rang in the lab. Anglea answered, "Hello, Jeffersonion Institute, Angela Montenegro."

"Before I tell you anything I have to say he's alive."

"Hodgins?"

"Zack."

"What about Zack?" With that said Bones turned aorund and so did Booth, who was chilling at the lab.

"He passed out."

"What?"

"I found him on the floor." Angela covered the mouthpiece of the phone and related the story to the two. "Shit!" Booth exclaimed.

Thank God for FBI vehicles being aloud to speed. Booth did seventy all the way to the hospital, muttering random things about "that damn kid."

"Seems like Zack grew on you." Angela said.

"I don't like people dying."


	9. More mikey and hospital visits

Chapter eight

"So he's okay?" Booth questioned immeadately as they walked in the hospital. Hodgins was waiting in the reception area, looking nervous.

"He's in stable condition, if that's what you mean. One more month even and he would have died."

"So why did he pass out?" Bones asked.

"You know Zack, he's a pansy." Hodgins smiled, but that was met by all-around scowls. Just as Jack was going to lead them back to the room where Zack was at Mikey breezed into the hospital. He walked half way past the group of Jeffersionian employees, turned on his heel, and went up to talk to them. "Is Zack okay?" He asked uncertianlly.

"Why are you here?" Bones ignored his question. He seemed un-phased by her rudness. "My drummer caught on fire. Is Zack okay?"

"He's in stable condition." Bones replied. She seemed un-phased by the flaming percussionist.

"What the hell happened to him, though?" Mikey asked.

"What the hell do you think?" Hodgins stuck his white-boy 'fro into the conversation.

"Well, can I see him?"

"What about the drummer?" Angela asked.

"It's only a severe infection. He'll live... probably. Thing is that I need to see Zack because I could have stopped this before it even started like, eight years ago." Dr. Brennan was about to open her mouth to argue but Booth pulled her out of the group. "Fine. Come on." Mikey smiled happily.

Zack looked really pale, like if you even poked him he would break. The boy looked skinny hand half dead. "Fuck..." Mikey said under his breath. The sound made Zack look up from a back issue of _Parenting_. "Hello." He greeted the group.

"Jesus Christ, Zack. You look like hell." Booth didn't really regret screaming that, the kid should have gotten help.

"Is there a case?" Zack asked.

"There is," Mikey spoke up, "And I'm the dead guy, that's why I'm here. I haven't quite hit rigor mortis. Or decomposition." That brought a smile to Zack's face. The group found somewhere to sit in Zack's little hospital room. They all started talking uneasily, trying to avoid the subject of why they were here, at least for the time being.

But eventually the subject came up. Oh, so tactfully Hodgins said "What the hell were you thinking, Zack?" There was a pause.

"I… don't… know…" He told the group. At about that time, the nurse said it'd be best for Zack to get some rest. The whole group left Zack alone. Again.


	10. First kisses and awkward moments

"Hey." Mikey said quietly, slipping into Zack's hospital room. 

Zack looked up at him. He had been scribbling something in a notebook on his lap. "The nurse said I couldn't have anymore visitors." He told the taller boy.

All Mikey offered in return was a dismissive shrug and the words "I needed to talk to you."

Zack refused to say anything after that. It could all very well be a trap. "Zack, you're damn smart," Mikey sat down on the hospital bed next to him, "And when the dude you work with that had the white-boy fro asked you what you were thinking and you said you didn't know… That was a lie. You wanted to say something, I could tell."

With scared innocence, Zack looked up at the older man. "It was never supposed to get bad. I knew what I was doing every time, this whole time. I was thinking that maybe… one out of ten people with eating disorders are male. That's 1,000,000 men in the United Sates. Bulimia causes liver disease, esophagus erosion, and tooth enamel decay. I was thinking that maybe that wouldn't happen to me…"

Mikey shook his head and took Zack's hand. Immediately after, he released it. "Sorry," He let the pale hand go, "That's probably really awkward for you since that time senior year…"

Zack felt so at ease with Mikey sitting next to him. He could feel the boy's body warmth through Mikey's jeans and the heavy hospital blanket that covered his lower half. He felt so normal that he speak without being viewed as a freak, he felt so… happy. Zack spoke in sentences he knew wouldn't confuse anyone. "That was my first kiss." He said.

Mikey nodded. "Mine, too."

Choking back tears, the genius actually took Mikey's hand. As of late he was getting less and less awkward in social situations. Maybe it was his time at the lab surrounded by people. Maybe it was Naomi from Paleontology. But none of that mattered. "I'm sorry that I out all of you through all of this."

Mikey nodded, unsure of what to do. He bent down a little and caught Zack's lips with his.

A voice sounded at the door that broke the kiss apart, "Zack, Hodgins finally told me what happened—" She stopped at the sight in front of her. "I'll come back in in three minutes. Make sure you two… disconnected by then."


	11. Group gossips and denial

"Wait, wait, wait." Angel said. It was three days after Zack had been admitted into the hospital and the excitement had died down, for the most part. Until Cam decided to share the news of her hospital visit with the rest of the team. "You saw _Zack_ make out with _Mikey_?" 

Cam shrugged. "I didn't see a tongue or anything." They were all crowded around a pile of bones (their latest case)

Doctor Brennan didn't look up from where she was at the table. "Is there anything wrong with Zack thinking he's gay?"

There was a pause. Booth broke the silence by saying, "Well, isn't Mikey a suspect?"

More silence. It was like people were afraid of what Zack would say if he were here. Hodgins spoke up in his defense, "We already figured out that Alicia's attacker was about 5'5". Mikey's a giant."

At that moment, when Booth objected with a weak, "But…" They figured out that obviously he did have some problem with Zack being gay.

"In roman times," Bones started to rattle off. But the whole group was pretty damn rattled themselves.


	12. Hospital releases and angry friends

The actual sunlight hit Zack's face, not just the weakened light through the hospital window. He squinted at its brightness. "You don't have to drive me home." He told the boy next to him, hand in hand with him.

"Like hell I don't." Mikey said, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

Zack protested that with a weak, "I can take care of myself."

"Like hell you can."

Zack noticed the short and quick way Mikey was walking. The hand that didn't hold his own was clenched in a tight fist. His jaw was set. "You're angry." He observed.

Mikey stopped their walking. He seized Mikey's other hand up. "Why?" He asked simply.

"Statisticially speaking--" Mikey cut Zack off after that and asked Zack if he wanted to be driven to his apartment or the lab. Zack carefully considered that. What was waiting for him at home? Silence and every episode of Firefly in exsistance on TiVo. And at the lab he had uncomfortable questions to answer, but at least he had good company.

He chose the latter.


	13. Homecoming games and lost friends

"_Do you get what's going on?" a young Mikey asked an even younger Zack. They were seated at the very top of the bleachers at their high school's homecoming game. With a nod, Zack proceeded to explain the dynamics of football, something he had memorized off the internet a few hours prior to the game. _

_While Zack continued on with something about field goals, Mikey gazed at him with affection. _

"_Hey, Zack?" Mikey interrupted his friend in mid-sentence. _

"_Yes?"_

_To that, Mikey replied with a kiss, short and quick, on Zack's lips. _

_Standing up and feeling like he was about to throw up against his will, Zack managed to stammer out "I-I have to g-go…" _

The boys graduated three months later.


End file.
